Penman told the committee that reform is nothing new in the civil service: "Any organisation should expect reform and change to happen on an ongoing basis, and this isn't something that simply happens as a result of ministerial whim... Change happens from within civil service all the time - that was my experience as a civil servant and it's my experience as a trade unionist as well".

He spoke of the FDA's warning that the Government faces "an exodus of talent" from the civil service when the market picks up: "Increasingly, with cuts in resources, with attacks from ministers publicly denigrating the professionalism and the competence of civil service, and pay levels that are so far behind the market... I think that there are a number of indicators that this Government should wake up to about what civil servants are saying about those issues and try to address them over the longer term".